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DOWNLOAD — Free Version:We present outspoken commentator Peter Cohen, who, in response to Gene’s search for a better deal with a wireless carrier, talks about T-Mobile, its advantages and limitations. He mentions the Band 71 issue, the new 600 MHz spectrum that T-Mobile is rolling out to some parts of he U.S., and the fact that flagship gear from Apple, Samsung and other companies are not yet compatible. The discussion moves to the new Apple TV, the issue of cable/satellite cord cutting, and the dangers of fragmentation, where there are so many services vying for your subscriptions that it may become must too expensive to watch all the new shows that require separate memberships. What about the new iPhones, and especially the iPhone X with Face ID for logging in rather than Touch ID? What about macOS High Sierra, which is officially released on September 25th. Does the lack of support, at least for now, for all those Macs with hybrid Fusion drives cause any problems?

You’ll also hear from columnist Joe Wilcox, who writes for BetaNews. He explains why he recently switched from T-Mobile to Verizon Wireless, mostly to improve coverage, but is now considering a return to the former. The discussion covers the ongoing dilemma of choosing the right carrier. And what about published reports that T-Mobile and Sprint, the two smallest carriers in the U.S., might be ready to ink a deal and merge? It’s not the first time this has been rumored. Gene and Joe will also talk about the new productivity features in iOS 11, and whether they might impact the use of the iPad as a productivity tool. There will also be a brief discussion of macOS High Sierra before the conversation moves to the Apple Watch Series 3, which comes in a version with LTE so you can use it to make phone calls without connecting it to an iPhone. Does this big step now liberate the Apple Watch so it can do most things all by itself? Does the future take us away from a big smartphone to a tiny smartwatch?

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Are you ready yet? The iPhone X will arrive in a few weeks, and Apple is doomed to suffer for its ill-advised decision to build an expensive smartphone. What self-respecting company would dare engage in such foolishness. It has to be doomed to disaster.

According to one column from a usual suspect among tech pundits, the existence of an iPhone X must do harm to expected sales of the iPhone 8 series. You see, instead of buying the cheaper smartphone, people will buy the more expensive one, thus giving Apple higher profits. That’s supposed to be a bad thing?

That the iPhone 8 came out earlier supposedly caused a dilemma based on the lack of information on sales for the first weekend. This is allegedly a significant issue, since Apple has traditionally done that, so is it possible there was no “passion” for the cheaper iPhones? They are, after all, just ho-hum products with “little more than some updated chips and hand-me down tech from the iPhone X.”

The entertainment industry has given us one thing, and sort of taken away something else, and it all begins with the fifth generation Apple TV, which adds 4K and HDR as its main new features.

So as the new set-top box shipped, Apple announced an important change to the iTunes movie rental policy in the U.S. So up till now, you had 30 days to start watching the movie. So far so good, but once you began, it would self destruct in 24 hours. If you weren’t finished, that’s too bad; just rent it again.

That was not a policy set by Apple to inconvenience their customers. It was clearly enforced by a greedy and paranoid movie industry that didn’t recognize reality. There may be many reasons why someone can’t finish a movie. Whether a family matter or something else interrupts the process, it doesn’t matter. Did the industry really believe that people will happily rent a movie a second time without protest?

The length and breadth of fear mongering about Apple knows no bounds. So on one day they are telling you that you shouldn’t even dream of buying the iPhone X because it is a new, untested product. Things might go wrong, Face ID might flake out and recognize canines instead of humans, so you’ll be stuck.

Well, maybe not, because you could always login in with your passcode, same as you do after the unit restarts.

I suppose you could cite the iPhone 5s and Touch ID as an example of being a tad glitchy. In those days, it was a little slower to react, and some people reported that it would become less sensitive over time. I recall having to recalibrate the unit every few weeks or so to more accurately detect my fingerprints. But iOS updates helped address most of the issues.

So if Face ID has some problems, I’m sure Apple will be quick to fix them. But remember, they have worked on this technology for several years. It wasn’t something tossed in at the last minute, as some online pundits have claimed, because Apple couldn’t embed Touch ID beneath the edge-to-edge OLED display.